Short Breaks Are Great Lesuire Break
Short breaks are deemed to be a leisure trip of between one to three nights and a holiday is defined as four nights or more.
Now let us look at our client base. Generally the ‘higher’ social groups tend to want to take short breaks. Research shows that A’s and B’s (Professionals and Managers) tend to take European short breaks rather than English breaks. With skilled workers (C2’s), the converse is likely to apply.
Within these general trends, however, there are certain ‘qualifying’ factors: As a percentage of total short breaks, car owners seem to take more breaks in the UK, as do families with children, whilst younger people tend to look to European breaks. Geographically, Short breaks in UK tend toward the coastal locations, whilst European sojourns tend to be City breaks.
Examining the root causes of this behavioural shift towards short breaks, we can, perhaps pinpoint some of the main factors:
The increase in peoples’ disposable income these days is unquestionable. Whether it actually originates from an increase in ‘real’ terms or from greater willingness to live on credit or other pseudo wealth enhancing strategies such as equity withdrawal, is beyond the scope of this analysis. There is, however, a sea change spanning the entire demographic, in that we all are more focussed on fun and lifestyle items even at the expense of basics. It is, therefore, more common for breaks to prioritised as an essential.
The lower cost of air travel and the proliferation of budget airlines go hand in hand with the previous point. They make short breaks more affordable in ‘real’ terms and have undeniably led to the popularity in overseas short breaks.
The ‘grey pound’ is a by product of an aging population. Unlike previous generations, the over50’s of today are generally active, in good health, have relatively large disposable incomes and are willing to spend it.
Although our annual holidays have always been precious to us, it seems that our lives are getting increasingly busier and more stressful. In response people are looking to take more ‘time out’ from their everyday woes by breaking up their working year into shorter segments interspersed with oases if peace.
Though this is by no means exhaustive examination of short break holiday trends, the prime movers have been covered above. The short break market is clearly set to grow even further, and should companies in the holiday sector take careful note of this and two major enabling factors – easily accessible internet access and the fundamental importance of online marketing, they will be set fair to prosper even in their cyclical market.